Ryanair’s carryings last month were boosted by a later Easter and lower fares.
Europe’s largest budget carrier saw passenger numbers rise by 14% to 11.3 million over the same month last year.
The load factor increased by three percentage points to 96%.
The performance gave the airline a rolling annual passenger total of 212.3 million, up 13%.
Chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs said: “Ryanair’s April traffic grew by 14% to 11.3 million customers, while our load factor jumped 3% points to 96% – boosted by Easter – on the back of lower fares and the continuing success of our ‘Always Getting Better’ customer experience programme.”
Meanwhile, eastern and central European low fares rival Wizz Air saw April carryings rise by 30% year-on-year to 2.3 million, with the load factor up by 3.6 percentage points to 90.1%.
This gave the airline a 20.2% uplift in rolling annual carryings to 24.3 million passengers.
Wizz Air now serves 140 airports and 42 countries with the announcement of new routes from Astana in Kazakhstan and Agadir in Morocco.